About the Book

The Handbook of Historical Methods for Management is invaluable for researchers seeking to expand their methodological toolkit. Not only does it showcase a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of management, the Handbook also provides both practical guidance and conceptual insights that present an inclusive overview of historical techniques for management.

Authored by leading experts in the field, this timely Handbook provides practical examples that explain the different processes involved in historical methods of enquiry. It introduces a wide variety of topics such as archival research, organizational memory, materiality, and ANTi-history, offering insights into the complexity of this broad field. Ultimately, the chapters revitalise historical methods in management and organizational studies through careful, interdisciplinary methodological guidance.

This comprehensive Handbook is essential for business, economics and management scholars seeking to clarify their studies. It will additionally be valuable for those in management positions striving to learn more about historical perspectives used to study the field.

Table of Contents:
Contents: 1 Introduction: why historical methods in management? 1 Stephanie Decker, William M. Foster and Elena Giovannoni PART I PERSPECTIVES ON HISTORICAL METHODS: THEORETICAL DISCUSSIONS ABOUT HISTORICAL METHODS FROM DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES 2 Historical organization studies 17 Charles Harvey and Mairi Maclean 3 Rhetorical history: giving meaning to the past in past and present 34 Christina Lubinski 4 ANTi-History: let’s get critical … critical, I want to get critical! 45 Gabrielle Durepos 5 A narrative of the historic turn in organization studies 63 Michael Rowlinson, Stephanie Decker and John Hassard 6 Researching with records in management and organisation studies: archives, data corpus, and reflexivity 79 Amon Barros 7 On terms: a key to methodological issues in the construction of history 93 Albert J. Mills and Jean Helms Mills PART II HISTORICAL DATA AND SOURCES: ONTOLOGICAL, EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND PRACTICAL WAYS OF CONDUCTING HISTORICAL RESEARCH 8 How to research in an archive 103 Kevin D. Tennent and Alex G. Gillett 9 Perspectives on oral history for historical research 120 Valeria Giacomin 10 Using accounting records as historical data sources 139 Christopher J. Napier 11 Archival research in the digital era 155 Adam Nix, Stephanie Decker, David A. Kirsch and Santhilata Kuppili Venkata 12 Multisensory approaches to researching the past: insights from history and archaeology 172 Hannah Platts 13 Process-tracing historical research methods in management 187 Andrew Smith 14 Historical case studies: richness, rigour and ‘contextualised explanation’ 199 Emily Buchnea PART III HISTORICAL PRACTICES OF ANALYSING DATA AND SOURCES 15 Critical hermeneutics: deriving meaning from historical sources 216 R. Daniel Wadhwani 16 Critical realism in historical research 230 Alistair Mutch 17 Prosopography and microhistory: illuminating historical actors 243 Garry D. Carnegie and Karen M. McBride 18 Insightful empirical knowledge in grounded theory and historical organization studies 262 Trevor Israelsen and J. Robert Mitchell 19 Foucauldian approaches to researching management histories critically 279 Stephen Cummings and Todd Bridgman PART IV HISTORICAL RESEARCH FOR ORGANIZATION AND SOCIETY: EMPIRICAL EXAMPLES OF HISTORICAL METHODS TO INVESTIGATE SPECIFIC THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS 20 A call for postnational historiography: notes on writing “history from above” 301 Arun Kumar 21 Researching past occurrences: discovering the past through conversational inquiry 312 François Bastien and Diego M. Coraiola 22 The City of London: genealogy of a contemporary heterotopia 326 Nelarine Cornelius and Eric Pezet 23 Exploring organisational identity through historical research methods 342 Elena Giovannoni and Pasquale Ruggiero 24 The past as corporate social responsibility 359 Robert Phillips, Judith Schrempf-Stirling and Christian Stutz 25 Embodied microhistories on the move: materializing microhistories through walking to include the affective memories of everyday life 371 Jeanne Mengis, Fabio James Petani and Claudia Scholz 26 Narrating rhetorical history to present an appearance of organizational authenticity 393 Kai Lamertz 27 The interview and researching collective memory 409 Jukka Rintamäki, Sébastien Mena, William M Foster and Mike Zundel 28 Taming the ‘mythical beast’: revisiting the myths of historical research in international business scholarship 422 Emmanuella Plakoyiannaki, Eriikka Paavilainen-Mäntymäki and Bareerah Hafeez Hoorani Index